Meetings around Christmas

[manfredvonrichthofen]

My squadron for the past few years has skipped our regular meeting for the week of Christmas and had a one day SAREX at a different area each year the week after Christmas, this year we will be going to a state park and an astronaut exhibit.

What does your squadron do around the holidays, a party, something different, or just skip it?

[HGjunkie]

We skip the last 2 weeks of December. It works because the school system here gives the last 2 weeks for winter break.

[GTCommando]

Our squadron has a Christmas party, complete with games, gift exchange, and every kind of sugary goodness you can imagine. 

[SARDOC]

We skip the last 2 weeks of December. It works because the school system here gives the last 2 weeks for winter break.

We do pretty much the same thing...We do our holiday party at the first meeting of the month. 

[addo1]

My hometown unit holds an annual dining in, complete with yearly awards and the such...

[HGjunkie]

We skip the last 2 weeks of December. It works because the school system here gives the last 2 weeks for winter break.

We do pretty much the same thing...We do our holiday party at the first meeting of the month.

We had our holiday party/ awards ceremony in november...

[Eclipse]

Obviously, depending on timing, it makes sense to skip some meetings, but this year, for example, with Christmas and Christmas Eve on the weekend, most units that meet earlier in the week could probably do so with no notice of the holiday.

My first year as a unit CC, succeeding a commander who had done things at a "lower ops tempo" than I had put in place, we had our holiday party the first week of December.

After dinner, one of the members came up to me and said "See you next year, Sir!", with all seriousness.  I looked at him and replied, "What? We have a meeting Tuesday..." 

"Oh, I guess things are different."

"Yes."

The previous commander, in addition to only meeting twice a month, skipped the whole month of December.  On top of that, any excuse from voting night to a Bears game was enough to cancel a meeting.

The result was about 22-30 contact hours total a year outside of irregular training opportunities or things the members did outside the unit, and then a bewilderment as to why they weren't getting anything accomplished.

My point here is that CC's need to be careful how much, if any, time is skipped because of holidays.  Cadets, especially, need to stay on
a regular schedule or will lose focus.  With so much vying for member's attention these days, it is easy to find things to backfill "CAP time" and before you know it, you have an empty meeting space.

As an aside, I've recently seen more and more units having their holiday / year-end parties to avoid the rush, and take advantage of
lower banquet rates in the dark days of January.

[Spaceman3750]

We meet the first 2 weeks of December, then come back after New Year. We have our banquet in early January.

[Thrashed]

We are doing the Christmas party and white elephant gift exchange the week before Christmas. We don't meet right after Christmas.  We will lose only one meeting this year.  We don't meet during school "holidays".

[manfredvonrichthofen]

We will usually meet on all holidays to include Independence day only because we are in the parade. This year we are completely skipping the meeting the week of Christmas because we meet on Thursday nights. So we are going to have the usual winter SAREX on the 28th or 29th as a call up. I agree wholeheartedly that you need to keep the tempo and not loose meetings as much as possible.

[DC]

My current unit has a Christmas Party the third week of December, then skips the last week of the month.

My old squadron had no holiday party (our awards banquet was always in October), but skipped the last two weeks of Dec, in tune with the school break.

[bosshawk]

Christmas party on the 16th, nothing more until early Jan.  Our senior meetings are dull enough without having a bunch of missing personnel.  We could likely go to every two weeks and not miss a beat.  Our cadets meet on a different night, so have no idea what they do.

[ZigZag911]

Our group holiday party (staff, squadron CCs, guests) shifted to January because folks had too many other commitments to attend to in December.

[a2capt]

Depending on the fall of the holidays, we either elect to skip the last or last two Tuesdays. Like this year, we'll be skipping the last week only, though staff (cadet/senior) will still attend on the week between Christmas and New Years this time. We have our traditional open house the 1st week in December, too.

[RADIOMAN015]

The holiday is on a weekend, so we do have a meeting on the week of the 20th BUT no meeting on the week of the 27th...

Generally, members aren't very interested in doing much CAP related activities during the Christmas time, they have more priority things to do in their lives.   We also have our annual award banquet in January each year.

RM

[JohnKachenmeister]

We had a meeting the first week of December, which was our Christmas party... snacks, champagne cocktails, and beer.  There was a little business conducted, and ID photos were taken with everyone in service dress uniforms, but mostly everybody just chatted and socialized.  Next meeting is in January, but the key people are in pretty much constant touch anyway via email and phone.

We don't have cadets, so training continuity is not an issue.

[Major Carrales]

We usually have our parties around the week of the 15th of December and then suspend regular activities until the first week of January.  Of course, activities such as SAEex and REDCAP are not subject to "winter quarters."

[Cool Mace]

We always have a Christmas party the week before Christmas. White elephant, drinks, snacks, that kind of thing.

We take off the last two weeks from December since we meet on Thursdays.

[ironputts]

Our Holiday Party was December 16th (Thursday) with all cadets, senior members and families participating. We began with cadet and senior promotions, awards, and presentations. We followed up with lots of food and general discussions with more presentations ending with see you next year. Our next meeting is in January. We cancel some meetings as we are in a church and the middle/high schools are next door so it makes parking tough. We take off the month of August due to vacations and national CAP events our cadets attend. I find that a great time to rejuvenate and get ready for another year. Twenty years and counting!

[MSG Mac]

I am visiting my grandkids and their unit has meeting today and on the 30th of December.

[a2capt]

We actually didn't have our meeting this week after all. The wacky California weather just killed it.

[Stonewall]

As a cadet and over zealous young senior member I hated that we didn't have meetings for 2 weeks during the holidays.  After all, we were off from school.

In 2000 I started an annual Winter FTX called "WINTEX".  It lasted 5 years and turned out to be a multi-wing event over a 3-day weekend.

[manfredvonrichthofen]

Why not still continue that? We do the same sort of thing, though it is nowhere near as big as wing, not even group. We might have another squadron or two participating with us, but nothing more. It is still a good time for a winter exercise, no school less work at businesses around the holidays, for the most part.

[tdepp]

Sioux Falls Composite Squadron met last night (Dec. 23) on a regular Thursday night and the meeting was well attended with perhaps some fall off from a non-holiday meeting.  We had our safety briefing and told those who could not attend to make sure they get their safety meeting in online.

We will meet again on Dec. 30 and hold a regular scanner/observer training session for SMs.

Our CC is a family oriented, religious person but also believes that we need to be prepared for a mission, particularly during the winter months (and the holiday) when the weather is bad and people are traveling by car and aircraft.  I'm guessing if Christmas and New Years (or their eves) conflicted with our regular meeting night, we'd not meet.  I think that's what we did in '09.

As to the holiday party, we held ours for free last Saturday at the EAA hangar at a nearby airport.  It was a great facility--lots of space, a kitchen, and a lounge area.  We had one of our best attended holiday parties ever.  It was pot luck, with the squadron providing cups, napkins, utensils, drinks, and some additional food to make sure we had enough.  Very economical and people seemed to enjoy it.

Have a great Christmas or whatever it is that you celebrate! And thanks for your service to your community and nation!

Best regards,

[Stonewall]

Why not still continue that?

I am no longer in that wing and there isn't much of a winter down here in Florida to train for cold weather operations.  Not to mention, the local units don't seem to take cadets involved with ES too seriously.

[manfredvonrichthofen]

the local units don't seem to take cadets involved with ES too seriously.

That's too bad.

[JohnKachenmeister]

Cadets, unless assigned to housekeeping tasks, tend to get in the way on ES missions.  They require extensive supervision, and are a distraction on missions.  It was not always so, but schools today are turning out dolts who cannot think for themselves.

[Mark_Wheeler]

Cadets, unless assigned to housekeeping tasks, tend to get in the way on ES missions.  They require extensive supervision, and are a distraction on missions.  It was not always so, but schools today are turning out dolts who cannot think for themselves.

Hrm, I was the senior member on a 3 person UDF team, the other 2 members being cadets, and they were very good at what they did.

Mark

[HGjunkie]

Cadets, unless assigned to housekeeping tasks, tend to get in the way on ES missions.  They require extensive supervision, and are a distraction on missions.  It was not always so, but schools today are turning out dolts who cannot think for themselves.

YMMV

[Major Carrales]

Cadets, unless assigned to housekeeping tasks, tend to get in the way on ES missions.  They require extensive supervision, and are a distraction on missions.  It was not always so, but schools today are turning out dolts who cannot think for themselves.

Now, Now Kach.  If you train them to take it seriously as a true service to their community, they end up being more focused than some CAP Officers, you know, the ones that think CAP is "baby games".  It's all in the approach.  Cadets with a serious desire to do ES are boons to the program and train to an effective level.  Those that lack the self-control are better channeled to other elements of cadet life.

[BillB]

Kach, you are 100% right, but at the same time 100% wrong. Sure the schools are failing to produce the cadets "of yesteryear". But the big problem I see is the lack of Senior support in cadet ES training. Cadet Doe gets some training in communications or FLM but never gets to practice the training. The cadet is used as a gofer at missions. Cadets could be valuable during missions, but to many seniors look at the cadets as children and have no part in real missions.
I've seen missions where cadets were on flight crews both pilot and observer. But that was the good old days. Now you're right cadets just sit around and get in the way since they get little training from ES focused seniors.

[JohnKachenmeister]

^You may be right.  The ineffectiveness of cadets is a combination of the public schools failing to teach AND our own officers failing to lead.  I have always held that cadets should be trained to a much higher standard than they are, and this means that our officers should be doing some of the things that used to be done by schools... basic writing, study of history, courtesy and ettiquette, etc.  I have been told by some of the losers we have in this organization that such an approach is "Too demanding" for the cadets.

If you do not demand excellence, you will never achieve it.

We do not demand excellence from our cadets.  Our senior leadership does not demand excellence from our officers.

The result is mediocrity at best and inadequacy at worst. 

[manfredvonrichthofen]

If you don't want to train cadets get to a squadron that doesn't have cadets, you shouldn't be around them. Personally I hold cadets to the same standard that I was held to as a cadet, all customs and courtesies, training with 150% effort. If you don't do these things, you will have nothing but bad experiences with your cadets. Cadets do love to train, they love to get out practice the work, get sweaty and dirty. Why do they love doing this? Because they are playing? No, they love doing this because it makes them feel important, and like they are training to make a difference, but this is only when they are challenged, if you make it too easy they won't get anything out of it at all, not even enjoyment. They will start getting really good at what they do, you will notice this when they are having less fun doing it. They won't slow down, as in they wont take longer to find what is lost, or find it instantly, but they will slow their movement speed because they are so comfortable with what they are doing they know they can walk and keep everything smooth. They learn slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Throw in a wrench like a fraggo and you will see them scramble again. Also don't forget, if they don't get some sort of praise they won't feel as into it as they did in the beginning because they feel undervalued.

Encourage, challenge and value your cadets and you will be surprised with what you see.

[JohnKachenmeister]

^  The problem isn't that some people are working with cadets who don't want to do so.  If you don't want to work with cadets, you don't have to, and you don't.  I flew more O-flights in the past year than the rest of my squadron combined because I can't get some of the officers to fly with cadets. 

The problem is that many of the officers who want to work with cadets are not competent leaders.

The combination of inadequate schools and incompetent CAP leaders leads to clueless cadets.  Since clueless cadets continue blissfully unaware of their cluelessness, the report to active duty and are shocked to receive clues from their drill sergeant.

[Ned]

I flew more O-flights in the past year than the rest of my squadron combined because I can't get some of the officers to fly with cadets. 

Interesting.

So what happens when you tell your squadron officers to fly cadets?

Surely they do not refuse, do they?  Do they just make themselves "unavailable?"


How is that any different than a persistent refusal to fly other missions, like ES or CD?

Perhaps I am just misunderstanding.


BTW, thank you for personally flying our cadets.  I'm sure they greatly appreciated it.

So do I.

[Major Carrales]

Kach, you know as well as I that, in school today, we cater to the lowest common factors.  No Child Gets Behind means, by default, that no child gets ahead.

I've been in a public school setting as a teacher for 13 years and as a student for about as long.  Parents enable their children to get away with all sorts of things that would have got me the belt.  You try to push students to do simple work and it comes back at you from Administrators that you are "too hard."  You are forced to lower the standards so that some kid will "get it" and that student, in turn, drops their standard to do it even less less.

How many horrible students and juvenile delinquents got Christmas and Hanukkah gifts (and I'm talking about high dollar things like ipads, laptops and cellphones of all sorts) despite failing every class, being in trouble with major authorities and disrespect for parents/teachers and the like.  I can recall that Christmas was rather meek if my behavior was sour. 

We award mediocrity, call the successful nerds and "school boys" and make excuses for our children when they are clearly in the wrong.   Teachers and even the police are yell at and loathed by parents because their child was punished for calling that teacher or policeman a foul name.  Judges let criminal acts of juveniles go unpunished because it will effect their chances at reelection.

See, and then we come along and try to raise standards.  We...teachers, CAP Officer scout leaders and the like...have to teach skill sets and things like honestly, integrity, respect and excellence at our classrooms, squadrons and troops because they come to us with out any of that.  Mommy and Daddy complete for the kids affections with bribes, instead of commanding respect.

Don't blame the public schools for not teaching the "basics," blame the parents and community along with us because we spend more time babysitting and correcting behaviors than teaching.

[JohnKachenmeister]

^By arguing details, you make my larger point.

It is not my point to simply lay fault at the schools for not teaching.  They aren't, and I don't care whose fault it is.  Teachers, administrators, school boards, parents, our stars, or ourselves.

My point was that the failure to teach by the schools increases the challenge for CAP officers dealing with cadets.  WE should be taking up the slack and creating leaders.  Unfortunately, many of our officers are not up to this task.

WE are failing as bad as the schools are.

[manfredvonrichthofen]

I do agree with no child left behind policies. The problem with them is that a lot of times they are taken to an extreme. If you have a student who is struggling, help him and support him with work that he can accomplish while still having some challenge. That does not mean that you have to make those students who are excelling suffer by sitting back and doing the same homework as those who struggle. Sometimes you have to play a bit of "favorites" drop the expectations of those who struggle badly, and raise the expectations of those who excel. Challenge everyone, just putting everyone into a low bracket you will still be failing some students, you will be failing those who are able to excel by not letting them excel. Take the little extra time to come up with some small things to challenge your students, all of your students.

I know you don't get paid enough. I know your job is thankless. But you have one of the most important jobs in the world, molding those who will later lead. I thank all of you teachers for what you do, now lets just step it up a bit and do everything you can to help everyone you can.

[Phillip]

My unit has already held it's end-of-year Dinning Out, officially presenting awards and such earned throughout the year..  We did that the first full week of December.  The only meeting this month that is canceled is the one for next week.  Then it's back to business.

The Wing is conducting a Winter Encampment this week.  It started today as a matter of fact.

[Eclipse]

Sometimes you have to play a bit of "favorites" drop the expectations of those who struggle badly, and raise the expectations of those who excel. Challenge everyone, just putting everyone into a low bracket you will still be failing some students, you will be failing those who are able to excel by not letting them excel.

That is where many of the "level playing field" arguments dissolve.

Life is not a level playing field, and the world will not make things easier for you because you are struggling.

Further, you don't punish those who excel by making things harder on them.

I have no issue whatsoever with remedial instruction for those who cannot make the minimums, but the minimums themselves should not change just so those who struggle won't feel bad.

For some people, failing a grade in school was literally the best things that ever happened to them.

[manfredvonrichthofen]

Further, you don't punish those who excel by making things harder on them.

I don't think any one wants to punish those who excel. They just need to be challenged. Everyone needs to be challenged, if they aren't, they will stop trying all together.

[JohnKachenmeister]

Ever notice that since the Federal government created the Department of Education, kids have been getting progressively dumber?

[manfredvonrichthofen]

Ever notice that since the Federal government created the Department of Education, kids have been getting progressively dumber?

I have, I am just glad I was an early victim of the Dipertmant ov Edgikashun.

[tdepp]

Cadets, unless assigned to housekeeping tasks, tend to get in the way on ES missions.  They require extensive supervision, and are a distraction on missions.  It was not always so, but schools today are turning out dolts who cannot think for themselves.

Not my experience at all, sir.  Our cadets (SFCS and SDWG) make up the bulk of our ground teams.  They are reliable, well trained, responsible, and gungho. They easily pass the foxhole test in my experience.  I gladly serve with them and would put my life in their hands.

[GTCommando]

Ever notice that since the Federal government created the Department of Education, kids have been getting progressively dumber?

Which is one of the reasons I'm home schooled.